Gretchen Armijo

City and County of Denver, Environmental Health – Built Environment Administrator

Gretchen Armijo is a professional urban planner and public health practitioner working to improve public health through community design. She is currently the Built Environment Administrator for the City of Denver Department of Environmental Health, working with neighborhoods to implement evidence-based strategies to promote health and reduce chronic disease. Before that, she served in the same role at the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment.

Gretchen practiced urban planning at the City of Aurora, Colorado and Douglas County, Colorado, where she led multi-disciplinary project teams for developments including transit-oriented development with light rail. She also led the comprehensive planning process for a Recreation and Tourism Master Plan. Gretchen has been a member of the Healthy Places Research Group at the University of Washington – Seattle, sharing best practices in healthy community design.

She taught “Health in the Built Environment” at the University of Colorado-College of Architecture and Planning, and serves as a guest lecturer as well.

Gretchen has a Bachelor of Arts in American Studies from Wilson College, and a Master of Urban and Regional Planning from the University of Colorado. She is a Certified Urban Planner (AICP), a LEED accredited professional, and a member of the Society of Practitioners of Health Impact Assessment (SOPHIA). She is a graduate of the RIHEL Advanced Leadership Training Program (2014).